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#RGI2025 pic.twitter.com/5IavLmUf6Y— USA Luta Livre (@usalutalivre)
January 9, 2025
As
initially reported in August 2023, former Brazilian rivals
Renzo
Gracie and Hugo Duarte
have joined forces as partners at an academy in Texas.
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“Definitely the world turns around. After years of war, I found out
that one of my biggest rivals is such a unique person, and turned
into a great friend and business partner,” Duarte told
Sherdog.com.
“Those crazy times were very important to forge who we are today,”
Gracie added. “A man is the enemy he has, and I have the honor and
glory of having Hugo as enemy, because that motivated me to be
stronger. One year after he came here to the United States, I´m
proud to announce the first competition where Luta Livre and
jiu-jitsu are together.”
That competition is the Renzo Gracie
Invitational, which is also being overseen by the Duarte-led U.S.
Luta Livre Federation. According to Duarte and Gracie, the event
will have gi and no-gi competition and will take place on April 5
at NRG Park in Houston.
“We will pay $2,000 to the no-gi absolute division,” Gracie
said.
According to the promoters, the no-gi rules will be similar to ADCC
rules, while the gi competition will follow the oficial BJJ rules
of IBJJF. More information can be found here.
For anyone not familiar with the most remarkable episodes of the
jiu-jitsu and Luta Livre rivalry on the streets of Rio de Janeiro
in the ‘80s and ‘90s, three chapters are always remembered as the
most violent and tense ones: The fight between the Luta Livre head
Hugo
Duarte and Rickson
Gracie in Pepe Beach in 1988; the invasion of Gracie Academy by
almost 100 Luta Livre students led by Duarte one week later; and
the historic riot of Pentagon Combat in 1997 during the main event
between Renzo Gracie
and Eugenio
Tadeu that led to the prohibition of vale tudo for almost six
years.
In all of those instances, Renzo Gracie
and Duarte were two of the most important leaders of both sides.
Despite two decades of back-and-forth fighting and hostility, the
two men always respected one another.
“We fought with honor, always one-on-one and the winner was always
cleared and recognized by both sides. We hated each other, but we
respected each other as warriors, never having an episode of
cowardice. And that was part of the past. The best way to finish
that story is bringing these two wonderfull grappling arts to the
capital of the grappling world today, Texas, in that historical
competition,” Duarte said.